Almost

Yesterday, I saw where a friend shared this picture on Facebook:

It's a good thought for sure. It certainly is true that that finding yourself is a fools' errand. It seems that back when I was a teen, there was a lot of talk about that. "I'm not in a hurry to be an adult, with adult responsibilities. I need to find myself first."

If your goal is to find yourself, guess where your focus will be. Yep, that's right - inward. On yourself. And one of the quickest paths to misery is to focus on yourself.

So is it about creating yourself? Well, that's definitely better than finding yourself. At least you're not out there looking for some elusive qualities that you believe are already there. But…it's still about me.

Jesus said something different. It was almost like this sign, in that he agrees that finding yourself is not the goal.

Almost.

But different:

Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

- Jesus, in Matthew 10:39

So how do you find life? By intentionally losing it. By giving up rights to it. By deciding that finding it is not worth the effort.

Devote yourself to loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And yo loving your neighbor as yourself. Losing yourself in the service of others. That's how we find life. In a way, that's how we "create ourselves." So I would modify the sign like this:

Life isn't about finding yourself.

Life is about losing yourself.

Almost the same. Almost.